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All about IT SecurityMon, 05 Dec 2016 04:26:53 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1itsecurity-bloghttps://feedburner.google.comWays To Enhance Online Security For Small Business Ownershttp://www.it-security-blog.com/it-security-basics/ways-to-enhance-online-security-for-small-business-owners/
Mon, 05 Dec 2016 04:26:53 +0000http://www.it-security-blog.com/?p=1301Money is always on the mind of all business owners, and many small businesses simply don’t have deep enough pockets to finance information security teams and resources to keep their businesses safe from IT security risks. Small businesses, commonly thought of as having 500 or fewer employees, constitute a majority of companies in the United States. Customers of these businesses expect their financial and other personal data to be secure. It can be overwhelming for small business owners that may not even have an IT department to think about how to handle their network security. Here are a few ways to make your online security a little safer if you are a small business owner.

Prepare For The Unexpected

The safety of stored data is important but life does happen. Mother nature could rear her ugly head in the form of a fire or flood. An insider threat or an outside theft could also impact the safety of the data of a small business. Have a backup plan. How can your employees continue working if the physical site is not available? Start to think of worst case scenarios and start to have a plan for disruptions that could last for the duration of the problem.

Check Out Your Employees

Do a thorough background check on prospective employees to check for criminal history (some business owners even check out prospective hires by looking at their public social media accounts and any history of filing lawsuits with former employers). When it comes to technology or cloud service providers, check out whatever they offer is in a signed contract with some kind of consequences if they fail to deliver.

Knowledge Is Power

Small business owners and managers have to have basic knowledge where the most important data is located. Are servers or desktops storing the data on site? Or are cloud services and mobile devices storing important data for your small business? Data storage, data processing, and access permissions should be documented.

Security 101

Make sure to deploy the security basics such as firewalls and anti-malware. If your small business lacks online security expertise, look for outside tech support. Read articles, search online resources, and speak with other business colleagues to get tips about outside assistance dealing with online security. When disposing of old devices that store data, like computers, remove the hard disks and destroy them. Papers that hold sensitive personal and financial information about your customers should be shredded.

These are just a few ways to keep your small business a little safer for you and your customers. It may cost a little money, but when it comes to online security and the peace of mind that it brings, the cost is worth it to your small business.

When it comes to small businesses, there are so many things that you need to consider, sometimes even more than you do for big businesses. For one thing, if a big business like Home Depot can get hacked and shopper’s info might get stolen, this can surely happen to a small business as well. Also, your small business may not have as much product or money behind it as a big corporation, meaning you have less far to fall when it comes to business failure.

The thing is, you don’t want your business to fail. If people went into business with the idea it would fail, they’d probably think twice about starting in the first place. You can do things to help protect your business from the potential of failure though. Here are some things that all small businesses should consider when it comes to starting a secure business with staying power.

Consider Your Funds And Assets

Starting a business isn’t cheap, and neither is keeping one going. You may need to consider getting a loan to keep your business afloat, at some point. There are many reasons a small business might need a loan, from getting started to upgrading to better equipment.

Yes, even your equipment, and other assets, are important when it comes to securing your business’s future. You need to make sure that the stuff you has works and is allowing you to put out the best possible products and services. This can mean having great office equipment or the right company vehicle.

Protect Your Clients

Securing your business also means making sure that your clients and customers are secure as well. That means using security measures when it comes to protecting their information, whether it’s credit card numbers or their home addresses. Make sure to invest in good internet security that you can trust.

Always Be Expanding

If your business gets stagnant, it could start to fail. Find ways to always be expanding, whether it’s new products and services, or new advertising and event planning. Have a clearance event, and then introduce a new and improved product line.

Invest In Your Future

Events, like open houses, are a great way to invest in the future of your business. So is investing in advertising. If you aren’t getting the name and intentions of your business out there to people, no one will be shopping with you. Advertise both online and off to reach the most potential customers.

Investing in the future of your business also means making sure that you are offering the best of products and services, If that means purchasing new equipment, then do it. Make sure that you have your businesses best in mind, as well as the best intentions when it comes to what you are offering to your customers.

]]>5 Common Types of Secure Loans To Help Ends Meethttp://www.it-security-blog.com/uncategorized/5-common-types-of-secure-loans-to-help-ends-meet/
Wed, 18 May 2016 12:45:09 +0000http://www.it-security-blog.com/?p=1283Money doesn’t grow on trees. But that doesn’t mean that sometimes you wish it would, at least just long enough to make some ends meet. But where trees don’t work, a few different types of loans might.

Five to look at specifically if you find yourself in a pinch might include loans from private companies, payday loans to get you through the week, bank loans (for things like purchasing a home, for instance), school loans so you can get the education that you need, and one often-overlooked option – getting loans from friends of family. With money, though, it’s important that the places you have transactions with have strong IT security as part of the loan process.

Private Company Loans

Sometimes your only answer to certain financial difficulties is getting a private loan. This might be for a business venture, or to go on vacation, or even to pay off another loan that is getting near a point where there will be other consequences for not paying on time. Your best bet is to make sure that whoever these loans come from are large enough to be legitimate, and also have some backing. Large loans from small, unqualified or non-secure places may come back to bite you in the end.

PayDay Loans

Getting stuck in the payday loan cycle isn’t a good thing, but if you have to use those types of options every once in awhile, it’s not going to kill you. It is a little bit of an emergency option, as in nearly every case, the interest rate is pretty astronomical, but if the consequences of not having cash on hand that very minute are strong enough, it’s an easy solution to head to the nearest place that offers this kind of thing and just budget quickly and accordingly in order to pay it back.

Bank Loans

If you want to buy a home, many times your best bet is to get a loan from a bank. This makes sure that interest rates are locked in, there’s government backing, the laws and legal structures are completely in place, data security is aggressive, and there’s a bit of room for you to wiggle in the long term. For the responsibly progressive, this is a good choice.

School Loans

Many people don’t have money on-hand to go to school. This is a simple fact of the matter. Tuition is expensive. Lots of people headed to college don’t have jobs or income. Which means that getting school loans is par for the course. Again, being very standardized, they’re a good choice in order to get in the door. Federal loans have maximum security on their IT systems as well.

Loans From Family and Friends

But if you want to avoid the legalese, the interest rates, the application processes, and potential dire consequences of loans from official places, don’t forget that you can always ask family and friends – this is the one option where you don’t have to worry about security at all!

If you haven’t been a victim of fraud or identity theft, or if you’ve never had to get a new credit or debit card because you shopped somewhere that suffered a security breach, then you may still be of the mindset that your identity, and your wallet, are safe. But that isn’t the case, especially in this day and age of online shopping.

If someone steals your identity you might not even find out about it right away. At least when it comes to stealing your bank account information banks and stores are getting more on top of things these days. The new chip card credit cards are supposed to help prevent credit fraud.

But what happens if someone does get your credit card info, or completely steals your identity? Well, here are a few things that could happen to you, if this happens.

You Will Be Tied Up For Months Trying To Clear Your Name

It could take a while to clear your name, and even longer to fix your credit in the case of both identity theft and bank fraud. You may end up spending time talking to police and even the FBI. There are many steps to take, and it helps to have a plan of action. There is help out there, as well.

You Could Need To File Bankruptcy

Depending on how badly, and how long it has been going on, your identity theft or bank fraud case is, it may cause the need for you to file for bankruptcy. You may or may not get back the funds that were stolen from you, and if it was enough to seriously impact your life, talk to a lawyer and find out if bankruptcy is the right option for you.

Your Credit May Take A Long Time To Recover

Once your credit has been damaged, even by fraud, the recovery won’t happen overnight. Even when the fraudulent charges are removed, it can take some time to build back up your credit score. You need to be prepared for this by making sure that in the meantime you are keeping your credit in good standing.

You May Never See That Money Again

There is also, always, a chance that you’ll never recover the money you lost in an identity fraud or bank fraud case. Maybe they don’t catch the person that stole from you, or maybe you just didn’t feel like you had the means to work toward a recovery. Don’t let the fear of things like bankruptcy and the cost of a lawyer scare you from getting your identity and your life back. Fight for your money, and you’ll have a better chance of at least recovering some of it.

]]>Four Tips For Marketing And Protecting Your Websitehttp://www.it-security-blog.com/tips/four-tips-for-marketing-and-protecting-your-website/
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 03:25:54 +0000http://www.it-security-blog.com/?p=1274The internet is the best place for businesses to be, because they can reach more people across the globe. However, you can’t just simply set up a website and expect it to be found, or anyone to even pay attention to it or take it seriously if they do happen to stumble across it.

That’s where having a marketing campaign set in place can come in handy, and can help protect your website from being lost in the internet wastelands. Here are some tips to help you get your site noticed.

Encorporate SEO

While you can do your SEO all on your own, a global marketing company may be able to help you out more when it comes to getting all the proper angles in place for SEO strategizing. There is so much that goes into SEO strategies that many businesses simply miss when they do it themselves.

You want to make sure that you are doing enough research on your keywords and keyword phrases before you are using them. You want words that don’t have a ton of competition, but are being searched for on a regular basis.

You also need to make sure that you are properly building links into your website, and blog posts, and that those links are going to credible websites that can help boost your own site’s credibility, rather than making you look bad, or even cause you a penalty with Google. And that’s not even getting into the analytics.

Use Social Media

Part of your marketing campaign should really incorporate social media. With so many people using social media daily, and throughout the day, it is by far the best way to reach people for any type of business.

Make sure you are sharing links to blog posts, products, and other pages on your website. Give people a reason to click those links and visit your website. Keep them engaged and they will be hooked.

Advertise Wherever You Can

You have options to advertise online. Even the social media sites, like Facebook, have pay-per-click type advertising setup. If you want to be seen when people do a search on Google, and you still haven’t ranked high enough, you can also pay for front page advertising.

Have A Secure Server

You’ll attract more people if they know you have a secure server for all of their shopping needs. With all of the breaches these days, it can be frightening to shop anywhere with a credit card. Make sure you have the https://, and maybe even offer payment alternatives, like Paypal.

Marketing your website is a must, and if you don’t do it you’ll regret it. Without a marketing strategy people will be less likely to find your site, and that means less sales for you.

Whether you are protecting yourself while you play around and shop online, or you are a business with online clients that need their information protected, you need to have more than just an antivirus. While that is an important security feature, it won’t protect from everything, and hackers just might be able to get around it.

Any device you have that runs through the internet, from your smartphone to your cash register at work, can be hacked and you can lose precious and important information to thieves. From identity theft to robbing your bank account blind, hackers know how to get in, so you need to do everything you can to keep them out.

Get A Secure System

Especially when it comes to business computers and online systems, you need to make sure that your entire system is secure. That could mean hiring in a company that does security consulting. They will do what they can to find out if there are any holes in your security where hackers could get in and steal info, or even wipe your servers clean.

When it comes to protecting customer information, like social security and credit card numbers, your business owes it to them to do everything you can to protect their name and their money. If it’s simply a home system, you can make sure you have all the normal security set up, like a good virus software and maybe even a firewall.

Don’t Forget Malware And Adware

If you’ve ever downloaded something on your computer and then found yourself bombarded by pop-ups, and maybe even found you couldn’t get into certain web browsers anymore, it’s likely you’ve suffered a Malware attack on your computer. Your virus protection isn’t always going to be enough to save you from this type of attack.

Find a good anti-Malware software and stick with it. Make sure, just like your virus protection, you keep it updated, and even run it once in awhile, just in case.

Use Encryption

You may also want to consider using encryption software when it comes to sending important information or documents in email. This is just one more way to add protection that will make it more difficult for thieves to steal important information.

Some email servers have encryption software available right through them, otherwise you may want to get some software, or hire someone to get you all set up and emailing safely.

Whether it’s just your own credit cards that you are trying to protect when you are shopping online, or you are part of a company that deals with other people’s private information, you need to make sure you’re doing what you can to protect all of that information.

Whether you deal with selling items or services online or in a store, there are risks when it comes to your customer’s personal information. Even the POS cash register systems that many retail chains use are subject to hackers since they work over the internet, and without the proper protection these hackers can walk away with more than just people’s credit card numbers.

As you can see, there are many levels at which a business needs to work to protect their customers and their information. So, how do you do it?

Secure Emails

It starts with making sure that your computer systems, yes, even cash registers, all have virus and malware protection running on them at all times. These two attackers are both different, and can both cause tons of havoc if you get hit with them. Run your checkers every once in awhile as well, just to make sure nothing slipped by them.

You may end up sending a virus to someone else through email. But, worse than that, if you are sending emails with private information and a hacker gets ahold of it you are the one accountable. Sending encrypted emails is pretty much the best way around this.

Secure Websites

While you have your own security to keep people out of your business when it comes to your computer systems, you also want to make sure you are protecting people that may be shopping with you online. That means having a secure server setup. Most people know if the web address has https, instead of http, it’s a safer bet when it comes to entering their personal information, like credit card numbers.

You’ll need a certificate for this kind of secure server setup. However, you can easily find the instructions for this online.

Use Encryption Software

Again, encryption can be one of the best ways to hide things from hackers. It makes it much harder for them to access the information. While you can generally set up encryption for emails through your email server, you may want to purchase some software to encrypt files and other information that is stored on your computer and prone to attack.

Your clients want to know that they are safe doing business with you, and the best way to do that is to ensure that they are. Even if you are still keeping hard copies of their information on hand, and not just storing it all online or in a cloud server, you want to make sure it’s locked up and safe and that you are shredding things that contain names, addresses, and other personal information. You’ll have safe and happy customers and they’ll keep coming back because they know you care about their privacy.

]]>Ways to Stop Yourself From Getting Internet Hackedhttp://www.it-security-blog.com/uncategorized/ways-to-stop-yourself-from-getting-internet-hacked/
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 15:23:03 +0000http://www.it-security-blog.com/?p=1263Everybody knows that internet hacking is a thing. The threats range from harmless to very malicious, and despite what you might think, nobody is safe from these thieves of the night. If you have ever left your social media account open on your computer or mobile device, you understand that having your friends post a funny, albeit embarrassing status is not the end of the world.

However-the threats get a lot darker than this, and they can even lead to identity theft if you’re not careful. Though many threats come quickly and you’re often unaware they’re there, there are certain things you might be in the habit of doing that could be increasing your chances of getting internet hacked. Here are some habits to make and break that will stop this from happening.

Start Picking Strong Passwords

Passwords can honestly be the biggest pain. It seems that everything online nowadays requires that you have a username and password, and you’ve been through the process before where you chose different passwords for everything and you forgot what login information went to each thing. This meant you had to start yet another brand new account.

Try to have several different passwords you switch back and forth from on different accounts. Always write down what account goes with what combo or else you’ll be back at square one. Luckily, there are apps out there that give you the convenience of storing your information in a safe box, as it were. Make sure to get a good app if you do that, though.

Your passwords should never be all lowercase or have chromatic numbers in them. A hacker can guess a password matching this description in 10 minutes. To make yourself internet secure, try using a phrase as a password or using a variation of uppercase and lowercase as well as numbers.

Find a Watchdog to Protect You

This could come in various forms. You could always have a close friend or family member monitor your social media sites and emails to make sure that there isn’t any weird stuff going on. The first sign of suspicious behavior, they contact you and you change your password.

However, the chances are good that your family won’t really know what to do or how to protect you. In this case, you’ll want to find somebody who does. There’s a free app out there that does exactly this for you. Any time there is weird activity on one of your accounts, you get alerted.

Be Mindful of What You’re Putting Out There

Last but not least, a very important step in making sure you don’t get hacked is to keep your information as private as possible. Be aware of what you’re letting the world see. It’s tempting to click and share, but the world doesn’t need to know your mother’s maiden name or your dog’s birthday. These little tidbits of information on you go a long way in the hands of a hacker.

Whether you are an artist or a crafter, or you are a published author or an inspired poet, if you are sharing your intellectual property online you may want to be doing a few things to protect it. Nothing could be more heartbreaking than having someone steal your work. You don’t have to hide your work in order to keep someone from stealing it though.

It’s about more than just making sure you let people know it’s your intellectual property though. Even files can get damaged and corrupted by hackers if your computer isn’t safe. Here are a few easy ways you can work harder to protect your artistic and creative endeavors. There’s no sense in letting someone else take credit for something you put your heart into!

Make Sure You Have A Secure Server

Passwords, encryptions, and virus protection are all excellent things that you should be utilizing even on home computers. If a hacker can steal your credit card information or your Facebook password, you can bet they can find a backdoor into that million dollar manuscript.

Not only do you want things to be secure, you should be keeping backup discs, or at least putting your important files on a thumb drive so that if your computer does get corrupted you won’t lose anything important.

Copyright Your Property

Take the necessary step to copyright your work. That could be as simple as putting your name or business name with the copyright symbol on a photo, or actually going through the copyright office to register your work, which can cost money but gives you extra protection.

Once you’ve published a book, it is protected. Most items, like photos, are safe with the copyright symbol. There are different ways to copyright art and even music. If you are an artist of any kind, take time to research all the ways you can protect your craft.

Put Your Name On It

If you post your own videos on YouTube, like Park West Gallery does, you can also benefit from the copyright symbol. That should be followed by your name or the name of your business, or even a pen name. Putting your name on your intellectual property is one good way to protect it.

You can also set up a Google alert for your name or business name, and anytime someone reposts your work you’ll get notified. They shouldn’t be doing this without your permission, so this will give you a heads up and you can reach out and ask them to take it down.

You put a lot of work into your art, you don’t have to let other people use it for free, or steal it, if you don’t want to. Make sure it’s safe!

]]>Password Best Practices for Keeping Your Information Safehttp://www.it-security-blog.com/uncategorized/password-best-practices-for-keeping-your-information-safe/
Wed, 27 Jan 2016 08:31:47 +0000http://www.it-security-blog.com/?p=1255These days it seems like every one of your online accounts – whether it’s an ecommerce site like Amazon or a subscription to a newspaper like The New York Times – has different password requirements. Some require a certain password length, usually 8 characters or more. Many require you to use numeric or symbol keys, and many of these also require the use of capital letters.

Why do they do this? And, more importantly, how can you keep your information safe? Use the following password best practices.

Don’t trust just anyone with your personal information. Not all sites are trustworthy; make sure you take a good look at their privacy policies to make sure you’re putting your eggs in the right basket.

For example, if you’re looking for an online service to help you publish text ads for your company’s website, make sure they clearly outline how they’re going to keep your information safe – even as it’s disseminated across the web. According to the security experts behind LinkTub, retaining a client’s anonymity is a critical part of keeping spam at bay. Still, it’s important to make sure you use the right password to keep your information safe.

Don’t use dictionary words. According to IT experts at UChicago, one of the most common methods for cracking passwords is a brute force attack, where the hacker uses an automated program to try possible passwords over and over again. Using dictionary words in a language other than English isn’t much better, because hackers are well equipped to try passwords in all sorts of languages.

Use a minimum of 12 characters. While the required standard is usually 8 characters, 12 to 14 characters is a better range to shoot for – and longer is even better. The math is simple; the more characters, the more possible combinations a hacker will have to try – making your password much harder to guess.

Use many different kinds of keyboard symbols. Passwords are case-sensitive, which means using a range of capital and lowercase letters will add further layers of security. A use of numbers and keyboard symbols (like $*#%) will also help. However, take care to avoid obvious substitutions. The word “dog” is a bad password choice, and “d0g” isn’t much better.

Final Thoughts: The Purpose of Password Requirements

They may be annoying, but they’re actually extremely important. Password requirements help to keep your personal information, like social security and credit card numbers, safe. It’s one of the easiest (not to mention cheapest) ways for websites to add a layer of security. Passwords that contain nothing but words from the dictionary are a breeze for hackers to crack – but those with random numbers, symbols, and letter cases prove much more difficult.